Guitar Dreamer

I've Gone Electric

2008-01-24T20:44:00.000+00:00

Well, it didn't take long... I've bought an electric guitar.

It's a Squier Affinity Series Stratocaster (budget version of the Fender Stratocaster), it's blue and gorgeous!

It came in a pack with an amp, cable, strings - everything I need to get started. I've been playing it for the last couple of days, it sounds great, and the fingers of my left hand are really really sore now!! Need to toughen them up a bit by practising every day.

A Little Progress

2008-01-20T16:07:00.000+00:00

Well I've made it through the first few pages of The Complete Guitar Player. I'm getting fairly confident with the few chords that I've learnt. I've picked up E7 chord as well as A, D and E. I can now play the chords for a few songs like Candle in the Wind and Hey Jude, and I can change between the chords fast enough (usually!) without having to pause for each chord change.

I'm trying to get some practice every day, and this will help my left finger tips get a bit tougher so they don't hurt too much!! So far, I'm having a great time with what I'm learning and I think it's good to be able to actually have some proper songs to play after a short time learning.

As I'm practising, I'm really wanting to get an electric guitar to play as well as this acoustic one.....

First Chords

2008-01-15T20:24:00.000+00:00

So here are the first chords that I'm learning:

I can play the chords with no buzzing or squeaking(!) after a bit of practice to get my fingers in the right places on the strings. I think my strumming technique needs a bit of work, and I also need to work on changing between the chords. At the moment, my fingers seem to become completely uncoordinated when I try to change chords!

The Guitar Dream

2008-01-13T17:10:00.000+00:00

It's long been an ambition of mine to learn to play the guitar. I mean play it properly, not just a few chords. I guess the dream really is to be a rock star, but reality kind of gets in the way of that, so I just want to learn to play the guitar as well as I can.

I've been given a Yamaha G90A to start learning. It was made sometime in the early 70's and still sounds good (the guitar sounds good, although at the moment my playing it doesn't!)

I'm going to start with a book called The Complete Guitar Player by Russ Shipton. It's a book that's been recommended to me. It starts with the very basics like how to hold the guitar and position your hands and fingers, and goes through lots of different songs and styles of music, teaching different chords and techniques of playing as you go through it to make playing sound good without making it too hard.

I'll be posting on here how I'm getting on, and I'll try to stay committed to practising!!